San Francisco dramatic review (1899)

4 THE SAN FRANCISCO DRAMATIC REVIEW September 16th, 1899 ( Sixteen Pages ) San Francisco, Sept. i6, 1899 Ten Cents a Copy — $3.00 per Year For Sale at all News Stands DRAMATIC REVIEW PUBLISHING COMPANY, Publishers 22>4 Geary Street Wm. D. WASSON Editor CHAS. H. FARRELL . . Business Manager C. H. LOMBARD Secretary and Treasurer The success of the Dramatic Review is already assured. We have come to the conclusion in the last week that there was never a better field for an up-to-date theatrical journal than on this coast, hence we will now admit that the Review has come to fill a long-felt want. Members of the profession throughout the country are writing ns favorably on our first number. Watch us grow! The fact that a sale of Mrs. Langtry's four thousand acres in Lake County of this State has about l>een consummated by a prominent San Francisco real estate firm, through her New York attorneys, Howe and Hummel, recalls the time when the doting Freddy Gebhardt bought the two adjoining ranches and presented the fair Lillian with one of them. It was not long before Mr. Gebhardt sang the refrain, " I want my presents back" but to no avail, so he sold his place to Mr. MacCreary of San Francisco and Mrs. Langtry has paid taxes on her property ever since. The price agreed upon is a large one and all that is needed to complete the transfer is her signature to certain papers, and Mrs. Langtry' s already fat bank account will be enlarged many thousands of dollars. ¥ Wm. Winter, the veteran New York critic, is getting giddy. He impetuously took Miss Rehan in his arms and kissed her as she landed from the Umbria last Saturday on her return from Europe. It is to be hoped that Stuart Robson will be successful with his production of the "Gadfly" in New York Monday night. He has not exactly been on easy street for the last few years. A good story is told of the famous tragedian, John McCullough, illustrative of his ready wit in an emergency. At one time he was on the program for a recitation at a charity entertainment, given in a San Francisco theater. Edwin Adams, knowing his aversion to interruptions, was in a box ready for him. Mr. McCullough came on the stage, advanced to the footlights, and, in an easy, conversational tone, began Bret Harte's "Flynn of Virginia" : 'Do you know Fly tin — Flynn of Virginia?" Mr. Adams rose in his seat, and said: "Oh, yes, I know him. I know him quite well." "All right, if you know him, I have nothing more to say. You tell about him." And the tragedian stalked off the stage. ¥ A DRAMATIC WRITER of the Los Angeles Capital says: "It will be a cruel blow to San Francisco theater people, including the playgoers there, to learn that despite their generous patronage of the Henry Miller company, one Leander Richardson of the New York Telegraph has decided not to let Frohman send out other good companies to the Coast. Richardson, who speaks as one having authority, and also access to the box office statements of the Columbia Theater, says that the receipts of the Miller engagement have averaged only about $6,000 a week, with a repertory of plays, anyone of which would 1>e good for a season's run in New York. It is to be hoped that San Francisco people will feel properly crushed under this arraignment, and promptly negotiate for rooms on some other planet. I cannot believe that Richard's Son will be satisfied with anything less than such a step." Wm. Archer, who shares honors only with Clement Scott in England as the leading reviewer of the drama, is contributing leading articles on America for the Pall Mall Magazine. In speaking of things other than theatrical, he gives his view of the big country that he has visited as follows: ' 'One thing we cannot too clearly realize, and that is that the true American clings above everything to his Americanism. The status of an American citizen is to him the proudest on earth, and that although he may clearly enough recognize the abuses of American political life, and the dangers which the republic has to encounter, this feeling (which is not to be confounded with an ignorant chauvinism, though in some cases it may take that form) is the fundamental feeling of the whole nation; and no emotion which threatened to encroach upon it, or compete with it in any way, would have the least chance of taking a permanent place in the American mind." A TALENTED GOVERNESS who wanted to be an actress and went to ask Henry Irving about the "method of procedure," had to wait in the theater until he got through with his part l>efore she could see him, and this is her opinion of his acting: "To tell the truth, his rendering of Hamlet was intensely amusing to me, and when I saw him die so artistically, with an evident desire not to spoil the artistic effect of the scene by any awkward movement, such as a real dying man would have made, I settled grimly in my own mind that I would go and see him immediately after the play. For I reasoned a man who is such an -artist that he can sacrifice the actor's part for fear of spoiling the artistic effect must have a weak spot somewhere in his heart for other weak mortals." ¥ <An Eccentric 'Duval. Dim. Grenier, who has played the * troublesome lad in " Peck's Bad Boy" more times than he can count, is authority for the following story: A Milwaukee stock company was billed for "Camille" and at noon of the day of the performance, the man cast as Duval, pere, became seriously ill. The Stage Manager was frantic — there was positively no one he could call on to fill the part, and in his despair he telegraphed a Chicago theatrical agency. The reply was reassuring, and read: "Have sent good man, letter perfect. Played part many times." The actor arrived at four-thirty. He weighed about two hundred and fifty pounds, and was unkempt and unshaven, with blood-shot eyes and whisky breath, clad in a shiny PrinceAlbert coat, baggy trousers, a bad hat and a worse pair of shoes, but a hurried rehearsal showed him to be up in the part and not a half-bad performer. By the time he was fed, washed and shaved, it was time to make-up, and he was assigned to a dressing room. The orchestra had been rung in, and in response to the call-boy's warning, he appeared on the stage. Mr. Stage-Manager, in the excitement of the day, had entirely forgotten the matter of clothes for his new actor, and when he showed up in the same disreputable garments before mentioned — the shock was terrible. " Where is your costume ?" shouted the stage manager. " Got it on," replied the actor. "But you can't play the part in those clothes. Don't you know oldman Duval is wealthy ? " " Oh, yes; I know he is a rich man, but he is also very eccentric, my dear sir — extremely eccentric." There were no coats available that fitted Mr. New Actor, so he played the wealthy Duval with a tramp make-up for one performance only, and played the part so well, the auditors forgot all about his costume. Subscribe for the Dramatic Review. Popular Song Writing "The writing of popular songs is fast becoming a lucrative business. John P. Wilson of the Tivoli opera house, one of the writers of good, catchy verse and a playwright of more than ordinary ability, has given the Review the following interesting article on how most of the successful song writers do it. "To begin, the writer observes the style of the latest song that has met with popular approval, and likely as not appropriates the idea; or possibly he has a touch of originality and copies nobody, though this hypothesis is improbable. Then comes the choice of a subject, and though the popular writer should be prolific in themes and happy in their selection, a trivial incident may serve as the groundwork if properly handled, or an imaginary one with a varnish of reality, the thinner the better, will answer as well, though novel situations are much sought after nowadays. "Whatever the theme selected, he must make the lines broad and their meaning unmistakable; the sentiment must be exaggerated, like the scenes in a melodrama. If he writes of love it must be of the faithful-unto-death variety — unworldy, improbable. 'The world loves a lover, ' but tor the commonplace wooer the world has no sympathy, and in a song the public's sympathy must be aroused. The lover in the lyric must tie a bold, handsome, devil-may-care fellow, and love like Antony. No half way business goes with the patrons of this style of song, and the 'woeful ballad made to his mistress' eyebrow' for them is played out. "If a comic song is projected it should be strictly comic, not humorous, with touches of hor.seplay thrown in — catch words and forcible phrases. "For a dialect creation authoritieson dialect can be consulted to advantage, supplemented by observations of the manners and speech of the nationality to be depicted, the whole broadened and boldly accentuated. "In the topical verse everything should be subsidiary to the climax. The concluding phrase should be like the cracker on the whip — pungent, startling. Perhaps no style of verse is so difficult of construction as the topical, for the air is usually but a vehicle for the words, its success depending on the appropriateness of the theme and the manner in which it is presented. "The selection of topic having been made and the lyric constructed to the best of the author's ability, it is given over to the tender mercies of the composer, and if he is clever and grasps the versifier's idea he makes the music in concord with the words. We will draw a charitable veil over the differences liable to arise between author and composer, the brain torture the latter undergoes in the composition of a catchy air and accompaniment, and imagine the song is a thing complete."